Abstract

Global food waste has become an increasingly important issue over the past decade given the alarming percentage of wastage that occurs specifically in the hospitality industry with much of this waste ending up in landfills. The environmental, economic, ethical, and social cost of this food waste to individuals, societies, and globally are significant. Recent research has tried to address this issue by identifying the reasons behind food waste and methods of reducing it by focusing on superficial behaviour change. The current study takes on a social practice approach and explores this potential superficiality in the Australian hospitality context by focusing on food service businesses. Data was primarily gathered through semi-structured interviews with actors from food service businesses (FSBs) ranging from fast food to high-end eateries. The findings illustrate the multiple practices pertaining to food waste (via a food waste process map), as well as highlighting the ways these practices are deep-rooted into social beliefs and norms. The social practice lens enables us to understand how social meaning/norms, materiality and knowledge/skills/competencies embedded in social contexts shape different actors’ attitudes, values and behaviours in creating/managing food waste. Specifically, through social practice theory, the study contributes to strategies and actions that can be undertaken to collectively manage waste in the food service sector.